---
title: Essentials
hideRendererSelector: true
sidebar:
  order: 6
  title: Essentials
---

Storybook essentials is a set of tools that help you build, test, and document your components within Storybook. It includes the following:

* [Actions](./actions.mdx)
* [Backgrounds](./backgrounds.mdx)
* [Controls](./controls.mdx)
* [Highlight](./highlight.mdx)
* [Measure & outline](./measure-and-outline.mdx)
* [Toolbars & globals](./toolbars-and-globals.mdx)
* [Viewport](./viewport.mdx)

### Configuration

Essentials is "zero-config”. It comes with a recommended configuration out of the box.

Many of the features above can be configured via [parameters](../writing-stories/parameters.mdx). See each feature's documentation (linked above) for more details.

### Disabling features

If you need to disable any of the essential features, you can do it by changing your [`.storybook/main.js|ts`](../configure/index.mdx#configure-your-storybook-project) file.

For example, if you wanted to disable the [backgrounds feature](./backgrounds.mdx), you would apply the following change to your Storybook configuration:

{/* prettier-ignore-start */}

<CodeSnippets path="essential-feature-disable.md" />

{/* prettier-ignore-end */}

<Callout variant="info" icon="💡">
  You can use the following keys for each individual feature: `actions`, `backgrounds`, `controls`, `highlight`, `measure`, `outline`, `toolbars`, and `viewport`.
</Callout>
